Writers From Life's Other Side

A small selection of books bought this year

Over the past few years I have made a point of seeking out writers that have never been on my radar, despite the accolades they have garnered for their writing. I am especially interested in discovering and reading writers from ethnic backgrounds that offer a new and unique (for me), view of life that I have never experienced or imagined. Additionally, I have been seeking out male and female writers of colour, who tend to add another layer of insight and experience to their writing that non-white male and female writers are simply unable to provide.

Among my female 'discoveries' have been Maya Angelou (I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings); Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God); Jesmyn Ward (Men We Reaped, and Salvage The Bones); and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (That Thing Around Your Neck, and Americanah).

Male writers of colour that have also come to my attention and join my list of new 'discoveries' include the brilliant and insightful Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Beautiful Struggle, and his stunning follow-up, Between The World And Me); Teju Cole (Every Day Is For The Thief); Colson Whitehead (Apex Hides The Hurt); Ernest J. Gaines (A Gathering of Old Men); and Daniel Black, whose recent book The Coming, I examined here...

Still more of my recent book buying adventures

Of course, I am not completely ignorant about the pantheon of great African-American writers who were, or are contemporaries of the above writers. Men such as Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, W.E.B DuBois and Ralph Ellison are names I have been familiar with for many years. Of these four writers, the only one I had read was James Baldwin. Indeed, earlier this year I reread two of Baldwin's now classic essay collections, Nobody Knows My Name (from 1961), and The Fire Next Time (1963).

I had read these and other books by James Baldwin during my 20's, but was motivated to read them again because two contemporary writers, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Jesmyn Ward have responded to Baldwin's famous essay, The Fire Next Time, by publishing in these past couple of years, Between The World And Me (Coates, 2015), and a collection of modern essays edited by Ward called The Fire This Time (2016).

Until recent years, my knowledge of female minority writers has been all but non-existent. I have read Toni Morrison over the years, and while I was familiar with Alice Walker and her book, The Color Purple, I had not, and still have not, read that or any other of her books. To be honest, I can not recall having read a novel by another woman of colour before Toni Morrison, which, for an avid reader like myself, feels like a terrible admission to be making.

Clearly I have a lot of catching up to do, and the list of authors, both male and female that I am adding to my reading list, continues to grow and expand. I just hope I have the time and energy to do the authors and their books, justice.

Here are links to some of the books I have read (or plan to read) this year...

• Between The World And Me, and The Beautiful Struggle, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Salvage The Bones, and Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward
• The Underground Railroad, and Apex Hides The Hurt, by Colson Whitehead

All are worth reading.

My 52-Book-Year Challenge

Just a few of the eBooks on my iPad 

Welcome to my 52-book-year challenge. I have always been an avid reader. My mother used to recall how, as I child, I could often be found in a quiet corner of the large garden surrounding our home reading comics and books.

This love of reading helped guarantee good English grades throughout my school years, and the enjoyment and knowledge I get from books has continued throughout my life until here I am, at age 68, still trying to match the rate of my book reading with the pace of my book buying.

Already this year I have purchased 32 print books, and eight eBooks! I have read eleven books to date, and my goal is to read a minimum of 52 books by the end of the year. I managed to do this last year, despite spending three months in New York City (from where, by the way, I returned to Australia with a small case filled with books).

In 2015, I read a total of 90 books. No wonder I needed to invest in a new pair of reading glasses! Of course, I have not been able to maintain this reading pace all my life. Work and family obligations, as well as other interests and activities, often got in the way of my reading habit, and ate into much of the spare leisure time I had to devote to my book collection. However, now that I am retired I seem to have hours to spare, and when not online reading through my daily newspaper and magazine updates from the New Yorker, New York Times, The Guardian, and other online publications, I make time to work through my ever expanding collection of books.

Given the extent of my current book collection, both in print and digital form, I have more than enough books to keep me reading for the next couple of years before I have to supplement my reading list. However, I simply can't walk past a bookshop (whether selling new, secondhand or remaindered books), without stopping to browse the titles on display.

My voracious appetite for books ranges across fields and genres that include history, crime, travel, literature, philosophy, politics, the arts (music and film), and many others. The genres I rarely if ever read include romance, historical fiction, food related titles, fantasy novels and far too many other genres to mention. There are simply not enough hours in the day, or years left in my life to read all the books I would like to be able to read.

I will endeavor to add reviews of all, or most of the books I read to this blog as the year progresses.